I don't know the economics of ESPN but one Wall Street analyst pegged an ESPN standalone package (that included ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN U etc.) at around $80/mo.
Okay, however, I was referring to a single channel, not a bundle.
Because it's a pipe dream to think you could get ala carte channels for $1.99/mo. Some have suggested that a stand alone ESPN offering would cost $80/mo alone.
That's why I want a la carte. Let ESPN live without subsidy from millions of people who don't want it but currently pay for it in their bundles.
We cancelled cable about 10 years ago. We just watched DVDs for a couple years and then went with Amazon prime, Netflix. Currently have Acorn. Sometimes watch drama fever, etc. already no need for cable. But there are some individual channels we might like to have. Mostly though, tuning it at some time to watch a show is archaic. Video on demand is much better
But this is why we'll never get ala carte. Not everybody watches the same channels. You might not care about ESPN but there are others that probably don't care about the channels you watch. If I take my DirecTV bill (just the programming cost) and divide it by the number of channels I get its roughly 56 cents per channel. The WSJ estimates that $6 of ones cable bill is just for ESPN (and that doesn't include ESPN 2 or any other ESPN property). HBO now subscription is $15/mo. I pay $10/mo for Netflix. Currently ESPN brings in about $9B in revenue for Disney. According to BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield Disney would need to charge way more than $20/mo for a stand alone service to come close to that $9B figure. Once you take all these stand alone packages and add them up you're getting close to your cable bill. And that isn't factoring in the possibility of needing a more expensive internet plan because streaming all this content will take you over your data caps in a hurry.
Really? How did you arrive at that conclusion. From what I could tell, the Beats division is lumped in with the 'other' category which as a whole was on the rise. Unless they've broken out the figures then I'm not sure how you can tell how much of this was split between products.
And I'm speaking as someone who's never really understood the Beats deal anyway.
I don't know about this past quarter but in previous quarters Apple's CFO has said the increase in "other" revenue is more than 100% due to Watch which would mean other stuff is actually declining. Of course I can't say for sure the decline includes Beats headphones but Apple sure doesn't seem to spend much time promoting Beats or mentioning it in earnings call commentary.
The Beats hardware doesn't really need that much promotion; it tends to get its exposure because it's wrapped around the head of every teenager and every sports personality. If Apple did start a massive advertising campaign for it, then I'd be worried.
And the reason they don't spend much time on it in the earnings call is because its a very bad idea to draw an analyst's attention to something they don't really understand. That's when they're most likely to go back to their desk, scratch their head and make stuff up.
But going back to your assumption that the Beats gear is in decline; as I said, you don't have enough information to make that call. The Beats gear is in a category that covers just about every other Apple product including Airport networks, cables, cases and what I suspect is the real source of the decline… the iPods.
Only because I don't think Jimmy Iovine was worth $3B and they got Beats at its peak. From Cook's earnings call commentary if anything Beats revenue is on the decline.
Really? How did you arrive at that conclusion. From what I could tell, the Beats division is lumped in with the 'other' category which as a whole was on the rise. Unless they've broken out the figures then I'm not sure how you can tell how much of this was split between products.
And I'm speaking as someone who's never really understood the Beats deal anyway.
I think they said "other" was 4.4B this last round and IIRC it could have been as low as 1.8B recently. Of course this includes refreshed AppleTV, Watch, an updated iPod line and Beats products.
I read early on that producing their own original content could make their own Comcast alternative. I did some napkin math and it looks like it could be a winner or at least profitable. To aim for their own full solution I believe at least 30 different shows are needed. I gave each show a $50M budget and a price of $30/month to consumers. $1.5B yearly cost and @ 11.5M subscribers would yield $4.1B revenue. To break even they would need 4.16M subscribers and anything beyond is heading in the right direction. What do you guys think? If they go this route do they go all-in or start with 1-3 shows to test the waters. I am not a cord-cutter. I pay a monthly bill to Comcast for cable/internet with no premium channels and no Netflix/sticks.
A company famous for it's censorship is going to produce modern TV shows? Hmmm ....
S'funny. A good ten percent of the songs I've bought from iTunes feature explicit lyrics. And a quick movie search shows that both volumes of Nymphomaniac are available, as well as Blue is the Warmest Colour.
Good try though.
Well I was talking about other censorship, not music. In terms of music they don't censor because if they did, most popular music would be unavailable what with all the "bitches" that want to listen to rap. They do however provide those silly "clean" versions of songs for the Christians in the audience. I laugh out loud whenever I run across one of those.
Apple is famous for censoring Apps. They once deleted hundreds of apps from the app store for having "inappropriate" content which turned out to be ... pictures of women in bikinis! Not even nudity. Bikinis.
They also have famously banned apps with any kind of nudity in them (things like jiggleboobs, etc.), and don't even allow cartoon nudity. They banned apps like the Japanese one where you blow into the microphone and the girls dress flies up on the screen. They even banned an app once (although I forget the name) because in certain situations the cartoon woman in it has her dress fly up and you can see her cartoon underwear. I mean you can find Disney cartoons from the 1930's that are racier than that.
Now I'm not suggesting these are great apps or anything but they are completely harmless and some people like them.
You'd be hard pressed to find anything in the App store that even the most rabid American Christian would be upset by and that's pretty much the point. Apple censors. They do so to a sort of 1950's-era lowest common denominator too. It's pretty appalling considering two thirds of their revenue comes from outside the USA and that to the rest of the world, USA's standards on these issues are both prudish and obsolete.
Really? How did you arrive at that conclusion. From what I could tell, the Beats division is lumped in with the 'other' category which as a whole was on the rise. Unless they've broken out the figures then I'm not sure how you can tell how much of this was split between products.
And I'm speaking as someone who's never really understood the Beats deal anyway.
I think they said "other" was 4.4B this last round and IIRC it could have been as low as 1.8B recently. Of course this includes refreshed AppleTV, Watch, an updated iPod line and Beats products.
Beats made 3B in sales a year when they bought i, if it stayed the same, likely 0.8B of 4.4 would be Beats. The Apple Watch likely had 2B in sales in the quarter. That leaves 1.6B for Apple TV, Ipod, and all the rest.
S'funny. A good ten percent of the songs I've bought from iTunes feature explicit lyrics. And a quick movie search shows that both volumes of Nymphomaniac are available, as well as Blue is the Warmest Colour.
Good try though.
Well I was talking about other censorship, not music. In terms of music they don't censor because if they did, most popular music would be unavailable what with all the "bitches" that want to listen to rap. They do however provide those silly "clean" versions of songs for the Christians in the audience. I laugh out loud whenever I run across one of those.
Apple is famous for censoring Apps. They once deleted hundreds of apps from the app store for having "inappropriate" content which turned out to be ... pictures of women in bikinis! Not even nudity. Bikinis.
They also have famously banned apps with any kind of nudity in them (things like jiggleboobs, etc.), and don't even allow cartoon nudity. They banned apps like the Japanese one where you blow into the microphone and the girls dress flies up on the screen. They even banned an app once (although I forget the name) because in certain situations the cartoon woman in it has her dress fly up and you can see her cartoon underwear. I mean you can find Disney cartoons from the 1930's that are racier than that.
Now I'm not suggesting these are great apps or anything but they are completely harmless and some people like them.
You'd be hard pressed to find anything in the App store that even the most rabid American Christian would be upset by and that's pretty much the point. Apple censors. They do so to a sort of 1950's-era lowest common denominator too. It's pretty appalling considering two thirds of their revenue comes from outside the USA and that to the rest of the world, USA's standards on these issues are both prudish and obsolete.
That's all very interesting, but it looks to me as if you just dropped all that irrelevant stuff in to save your argument. We're not talking about apps (and the ones you described could have been dropped simply because they're crap – like a lot of the fart apps that Apple dropped from the store) or ads (which have to be decent because it's hard to control where they're going to crop up).
We're talking about tv and film, and as I have already pointed out, Apple has a lot of stuff in the iTunes store which sails pretty close to hardcore porn. So I don't think censorship is going to be a problem.
I agree Time Warner is too expensive but there's no way legacy content would cost any more than original content.
Time Warner may be for sale again. ...
How you figure that? Following the FCC's rejection of Comcast's buyout offer for TimeWarner Cable, Charter Cable made an offer. In September 2015, TWC shareholders approved Charter's offer. The proposed buyout, which will include TWC spin-off Bright House, is currently under FCC review. However, the state review process continues apace. On 11 January 2016, New York state regulators approved the buyout.
Apple can stop paying dividents and stock buybacks and use that 2 quarters of savings to buy TWC. Than, make few skinny bundles from it and add few original shows on top.You got winner combination.
Apple can stop paying dividents and stock buybacks and use that 2 quarters of savings to buy TWC. Than, make few skinny bundles from it and add few original shows on top.You got winner combination.
No, it cannot. TWC is in the process of merging with Charter Cable. The merger has been approved by TWC shareholders and is in the final stages of FCC review.
Apple can stop paying dividents and stock buybacks and use that 2 quarters of savings to buy TWC. Than, make few skinny bundles from it and add few original shows on top.You got winner combination.
Please stop spending my money! Why would they have to stop paying my dividends to make that happen. They've got plenty of money to do so without intentionally taking away dividends!
If Apple stops paying Dividends at this point, the stock will drop to a leven much lower than its at now!
Comments
But this is why we'll never get ala carte. Not everybody watches the same channels. You might not care about ESPN but there are others that probably don't care about the channels you watch. If I take my DirecTV bill (just the programming cost) and divide it by the number of channels I get its roughly 56 cents per channel. The WSJ estimates that $6 of ones cable bill is just for ESPN (and that doesn't include ESPN 2 or any other ESPN property). HBO now subscription is $15/mo. I pay $10/mo for Netflix. Currently ESPN brings in about $9B in revenue for Disney. According to BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield Disney would need to charge way more than $20/mo for a stand alone service to come close to that $9B figure. Once you take all these stand alone packages and add them up you're getting close to your cable bill. And that isn't factoring in the possibility of needing a more expensive internet plan because streaming all this content will take you over your data caps in a hurry.
http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-cable-subscribers-pay-per-channel-1626/
http://qz.com/594955/people-definitely-do-not-think-standalone-espn-is-worth-20/
The Beats hardware doesn't really need that much promotion; it tends to get its exposure because it's wrapped around the head of every teenager and every sports personality. If Apple did start a massive advertising campaign for it, then I'd be worried.
And the reason they don't spend much time on it in the earnings call is because its a very bad idea to draw an analyst's attention to something they don't really understand. That's when they're most likely to go back to their desk, scratch their head and make stuff up.
But going back to your assumption that the Beats gear is in decline; as I said, you don't have enough information to make that call. The Beats gear is in a category that covers just about every other Apple product including Airport networks, cables, cases and what I suspect is the real source of the decline… the iPods.
What do you guys think? If they go this route do they go all-in or start with 1-3 shows to test the waters.
I am not a cord-cutter. I pay a monthly bill to Comcast for cable/internet with no premium channels and no Netflix/sticks.
Apple is famous for censoring Apps. They once deleted hundreds of apps from the app store for having "inappropriate" content which turned out to be ... pictures of women in bikinis! Not even nudity. Bikinis.
They also have famously banned apps with any kind of nudity in them (things like jiggleboobs, etc.), and don't even allow cartoon nudity. They banned apps like the Japanese one where you blow into the microphone and the girls dress flies up on the screen. They even banned an app once (although I forget the name) because in certain situations the cartoon woman in it has her dress fly up and you can see her cartoon underwear. I mean you can find Disney cartoons from the 1930's that are racier than that.
Now I'm not suggesting these are great apps or anything but they are completely harmless and some people like them.
You'd be hard pressed to find anything in the App store that even the most rabid American Christian would be upset by and that's pretty much the point. Apple censors. They do so to a sort of 1950's-era lowest common denominator too. It's pretty appalling considering two thirds of their revenue comes from outside the USA and that to the rest of the world, USA's standards on these issues are both prudish and obsolete.
That's all very interesting, but it looks to me as if you just dropped all that irrelevant stuff in to save your argument. We're not talking about apps (and the ones you described could have been dropped simply because they're crap – like a lot of the fart apps that Apple dropped from the store) or ads (which have to be decent because it's hard to control where they're going to crop up).
We're talking about tv and film, and as I have already pointed out, Apple has a lot of stuff in the iTunes store which sails pretty close to hardcore porn. So I don't think censorship is going to be a problem.
If Apple stops paying Dividends at this point, the stock will drop to a leven much lower than its at now!